Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Swing Left, Sweet Chariot

Having read and reread the Rocky Mountain News article on Udall's apleanty, we think it would be more than fair to add it to our scoreboard. While El Presedente correctly (see below) chooses not to count the Walt Klein quote, there are actually two comments on Udall's political positioning. The other:

The family's history in politics has led some to call them "the Kennedys of the West."

Tom Udall's father, Stewart Udall, served six years as a Democratic Arizona congressman before being appointed secretary of the interior in 1961.

Mark Udall's father, Democrat Morris "Mo" Udall, replaced his brother Stewart in Congress, where he served for 30 years. Smith is a second cousin to Mark and Tom Udall.

Got all that? By now in its fourth generation, the Udall political family tree has a lot of branches. Most limbs lean left.

We think that we can legitimately count the last sentence as a msm observation about Udall's position on the spectrum without compromising our methodology. We'll add it to the liberal column.

The Mark Udall is not a moderate scoreboard:extremist 2reliably left wing 5liberal 22moderate 0conservative (chuckle)

We started this scoreboard when we noticed that liberal blogs and the msm were routinely calling Mark Udall a "liberal," "reliably left wing," and even "extremist." We do not count comments from conservative blogs and we didn't count a comment on a liberal show by a conservative politician. Those who would like to check our methodology can follow the bread crumbs backwards.

The Mark Udall is Not a Moderate Scoreboard

On an ongoing basis, Schaffer v Udall tallies mentions of Rep. Mark Udall in the liberal blogosphere and mainstream media to provide readers a fair and thorough accounting of where the Democratic Senate candidate fits on the political spectrum. Comments by blogs, pundits, and politicians of a conservative persuasion are excluded from the tally.